Plastic bottles having integrally molded handles are popular in the marketplace for packaging products such as chlorinated water, detergents, fabric conditioners, etc. These handled containers are conventionally produced by blow mold process in which, as a first step, a parison is created by extruding a tubular section of plastic material. The parison is then confined within the interior of a split mold and air is introduced into the parison to expand it into conformity with the interior of the mold. In the formation of handled bottles the tubular parison is initially expanded prior to the closing of the molds to make sure that the handle portion of the mold will close upon a portion of the parison. This inherently requires that the closing molds grip between them, some of the parison plastic material to produce a web of plastic material within the handle opening at the conclusion of the molding process. This web of plastic material is conventionally known in the plastic trade as "flash." Additionally, as the mold closes, a certain amount of the parison is caught between the mold faces and the region of the shoulder, thus resulting in flash on the shoulder of the completed article.
Before the handled plastic articles can be placed in commerce, this flash must be removed. There are several devices for effecting such removal such as the ones disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,319,498 and 3,695,109. While these devices are claimed by the invertors to be effective in removing flash from the containers it has been found desirable in the industry to have available an apparatus which has low manpower requirements and a high cycle time.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an apparatus which is capable of deflashing containers at a high rate and which has low manpower requirements.